Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/141

 from their room but for the general uneasy awe of the parson. For nothing was so dangerous in the Jago as to impugn its honesty. To rob another was reasonable and legitimate, and to avoid being robbed, so far as might be, was natural and proper. But to accuse anybody of a theft was unsportsmanlike, a foul outrage, a shameful abuse, a thing unpardonable. You might rob a man, bash a man, even kill a man; but to "take away his character"—even when he had none—was to draw the execrations of the whole Jago; while to assail the pure fame of the place—to "give the street a bad name"—this was to bring the Jago howling and bashing about your ears.

The truck moved off at last, amid murmurings, mutterings and grunts from the onlookers. The man of the truck pulled, Roper shoved behind, and his wife, with her threadbare decency and her meagre, bruised face, carried the baby, while the